ORLANDO — Orange County Public Schools prides itself on providing laptops to all students, an effort that started in 2013 and aimed to make sure everyone had access to technology no matter their family’s income.
But putting laptops in the hands of thousands of students — and keeping them running and up to date — has proved to be pricey.
The Orange County Public Schools’ laptop repair budget for the school year that ends this week is $1.6 million, and in coming years the yearly budget to purchase and maintain laptops is at least $30 million, with more slated to be spent on classroom technology.
School leaders say they are not second-guessing the laptop initiative, which has been paid for mostly with money from a voter-approved sales tax and mirrors efforts in school systems nationwide. But they are looking at ways to curb costs.
“The repair cost is not something we can continue to sustain,” Superintendent Maria Vazquez told the Orange County School Board at a recent meeting.
Her staff is looking at leasing programs, which could reduce repair costs that mounted when the district kept older laptops in use for up to eight years. The district also is reconsidering whether younger students should take their school laptops home with them, among other possible changes.
“I don’t have any regrets about the devices,” Vazquez said in an interview, noting they helped Orange County Public Schools shift quickly to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic that shuttered schools and pushed many students to study online.
The school district is “not going backwards,” she added, but needs to find ways to lower its tech bills.
In recent years, Orang County Public Schools purchased hard, protective cases for student laptops, looking to reduce damage, and ended its policy of having students keep their school-issued laptops during the summer.
The hope was that students would use the educational programs loaded onto their devices during the long break, but few did and the summer months spent in students’ homes just increased the number of laptops needing repairs when the school year started, Vazquez said.
Orange County Public Schools assesses fines when students break or lose their school laptops — up to $400 for a third incident, according to information on the district’s website — but that money doesn’t put enough of a dent in the repair budget, she added.
Central Florida’s largest school district first handed out laptops to 8,000 students in 2013 and less than a decade later was providing laptops to everyone.
In the past two years, Orange County Public Schools purchased more than 183,000 new laptops and refurbished nearly 20,500, district officials said, with older devices put on standby to serve as loaners if new ones need repairs.
The laptops allow students to complete and submit assignments online and access educational programs and digital textbooks, among other things.
School board members, who want Orange County voters to renew the half-penny sales tax for a third time in November, said they also want to rein in spending.
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Explore all your options“These devices are costing a lot of money,” said board member Angie Gallo at a meeting earlier this month. “It would seem that would be something we really need to look at, if that is sustainable over a long period of time.”
“I’m not suggesting we go back because I think as a society we are going to keep moving forward with technology, and it’s important that our students keep up,” Gallo added.
But having elementary students keep their laptops at school might help limit repair bills, as well as ease parents and educators’ concerns about the harm of screen time. “I know a lot of parents don’t want their kids on computers when they get home,” she said.
Middle and high school students use their school laptops the most and also create the bulk of the laptop repairs, Vazquez said.
This week many Lake Nona High School students, like counterparts across the county, turned in their computers, most handing back laptops that worked as they did when the school year started in August.
But a sign on the media center’s door as laptop returns were underway — “With all due respect, we did NOT give it to you like that” — and a small cabinet filled with dozens of damaged computers also spoke to the problem. Among those in the cabinet: a laptop with a keyboard splashed with nail polish remover, another with a cracked screen and a third with a wrenched-apart hinge.
In the next two years, Orange County Public Schools expects to spend about $80 million on technology, which includes laptops as well as infrastructure and classroom technology such as interactive “smart boards.” The district has the money for those purchases in its budget.
But in following eight years, officials estimate the total cost of “technology infrastructure and device refresh” would hit $447 million, and paying for that would depend on the sales tax getting renewed by voters in November.
The sales tax, first approved in 2002, has paid for the renovation of 136 older campuses and the construction of 65 new ones. It now accounts for about 45% of the school district’s capital programs budget, and, if voters renew it again this year, will help Orange County Public Schools build six new schools, renovate others and pay for updates to roofs, air-conditioning systems and technology.
“I think all of our parents and community know that technology is not going away. It’s really important for us to have access here,” said board member Maria Salamanca as the board reviewed its capital budget. “We, as a school district, want to provide this infrastructure and devices, but we really need to understand and have a real grasp of the cost of this.”
By Leslie Postal, Orlando Sentinel
